


To the Edge of Doom

by sasabrina



Category: Kuromukuro (Anime)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-13 00:09:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15351867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasabrina/pseuds/sasabrina
Summary: Yukina and Kennosuke find each other in the depths of space six years later. And that's exactly the problem. When neither is the person the other once knew, will love alter with the alterations that it finds? [continuation fic]





	1. Chapter 1

"Powering down the artificial light." 

"Copy that. Turning on cruise control."

"Cruise is go. Moving into night cycle."

As the harsh white light of the command bay shifted into blue, Yukina Shirahane slowly let out her breath. She could feel the beginnings of a yawn building at the back of her throat. Just a few seconds more.

"Day cycle number 395 completed, Captain." Sophie Noël said. 

"Thank you, Officer Noël," Captain Kirsanov said, "Everybody, good work this day. Rest well."

Yukina stood quickly right as Captain Kirsanov stood from his chair. All around her, the rest of the crew of the Kurobe Explorer were doing the same. Just as the doors to the Command Bay shut behind the Captain, Yukina let out the yawn that had been itching to come out just moments ago.

"You didn't even let the door fully close this time, Shirahane," Liu Yun, the ship's communication officer, teased.

"Oh, come off it." Yukina said, scratching her head. Yukina couldn’t help it. For weeks, her bunk had served merely as a setting for the hours between wanting rest and giving in to the fact that rest will never come. Every night, Yukina found herself wandering around the ship desperate for something to occupy her wake-fullness. Most nights, that was reviewing star charts and pouring over the trajectory equations she developed in Toyama. On nights when not even deep physics could lull her to sleep, she reached for the data the alien Zell left before he disappeared with the boy who was as impossible as Yukina was now, lightyears away from her home. A 400-year old samurai and a painfully naive Japanese girl. The two most unlikely space travelers. 

Some nights, when not even that could soothe the ache Yukina felt in that space between her heart and her stomach, she found herself in the ship’s kitchens reaching for spices and the imitation meat Dr. Cook had miraculously managed to make out of his crop in the agriculture deck. She sympathized with the medical officer’s drive to create something on this voyage into darkness. It was after all, why she was in the kitchens to begin with. The sizzle of onions and soy by-products reminded her of simpler times — when she cooked out of duty and not as a means to maintain her sanity. The curry she made was never as good as she was used to. But it had to do. 

"I don't know, I'm with Yukina on this one," said Rosa Mendez, chief engineer, "I'm ready to hit my bunk. Who has first watch tonight?"

"You are fully aware that I take first watch every night," Sophie Noël said as she took the chair the Captain had just vacated in the middle of room. The young First Officer started pushing buttons on the control panel that opened up in front of her. Yukina could heard the soft sound of a piano began filing the command bay.

"Piano Sonata in B-Flat Major. Mozart. Feeling joyful today, Officer Noël?" Dr. Ambrose Cook, the ship's science and medical officer asked.

"I noticed your crops were looking a little limp, Doctor," Sophie answered, "I thought this might encourage some vigor into them."

"Insightful as always, Officer Noël," the doctor said with a slight bow of his head, "they did not seem to take well to the Prokofiev."

"Make sure the Captain doesn't hear you say that," Sebastian joked.

"As long as you keep the weapons deck locked tight my crop is safe from our Captain’s rabid nationalism, Sebastian." Dr. Cook laughed as he walked to the bay door and left. Everyone else followed right after. Even Sebastian who usually stayed with Sophie until his own shift right after was stretching as he walked behind Rosa and Liu. 

"Do you want to talk about it, Yukina?" Sophie Noël asked once everyone else had left. 

Even though they'd spent the last six years together, Yukina was still surprised by how much Sophie had changed over the years. While she still seemed cold and aloof at times, she had become extremely insightful, almost sympathetic, as to Yukina's state of mind. Perhaps it helped that they were the two youngest people on this ship by at least a full decade.

"I just can't believe it's almost over. I'll finally get to see him after all this time," Yukina said. She clutched the red pendant around her neck. Dr. Hausen had given it to her a little over a year after Kennosuke left. Yukina thought that perhaps the Doctor believed it would give her a sense of security. That knowing that Kennosuke was still alive would somehow help her through everything it took to reunite with him. Yukina had to admit that there were days when the bright red got her out of the melancholy of her bed. That the red glow pushed her to read one more chapter as the sun began to rise. That there were days when all she could trust to believe in was the glowing red. So much so that she saw it even when she closed her eyes. Lately, however, she'd been staring at the pendant and willing it to show her any other clue as to Kennosuke and how he was. Anything. Was he happy? Did he miss her? Was he still waiting? It was, in its own way, an extremely cruel gift to give.

"Have you thought of what you'll tell him when you see him?" Sophie asked, her voice taking an uncharacteristic tone of concern. 

Yukina didn't bother hiding her wince. That was another in the list of things keeping her up at night. What would she even have to tell Kennosuke? What would they talk about? Who was Kennosuke now, even? Yukina was painfully aware of her own drastic transformation. The years of rigorous training she had to endure to qualify her on this mission ensured that. Yukina herself could no longer recognize the girl she had been around Kennosuke. It was naïve to believe that Kennosuke would remain the boy she knew all those years ago.

"No, I can't say I have," Yukina said.

"You know it's no use lying to me," Sophie quipped.

Yukina was about to reply that she could always try to lie to the young girl when an alarm began to fill the room. The blues of the command bay had turned to blaring red. Trouble. Yukina looked at the stats superimposed on the bay window. 

She could hardly believe what she saw.

"Officer Noël, what is going on?" The Captain's voice asked over the intercom.

"We have a Code Blue, Captain," Sophie answered. Yukina ran to the comm station and turned on the ship-wide communicator.

"Code Blue. I repeat, we have a Code Blue. All personnel are to report to the Command Bay. We have an Efy Dolge ship at our door."


	2. Chapter 2

“We could get into the GAUS and fight the bastards,” Rosa said. 

“Negative, Officer Mendez,” Captain Kirsanov said, his accent thick with fury. “We cannot engage enemy onboard their ship. Like hell they come on board this ship. What is their status, Officer Noël?”

“I’ve confirmed that they’re locked on to us and gaining speed,” Sophie answered. 

“We cannot lead them to our destination. Can we outrun them?” Captain Kirsanov asked.

“Negative, Captain,” Yukina answered, “changing course at this rate will add at least 100 more cycles to our trip. And god knows where we’ll end up.” There was no way Yukina was changing course. Not like this. Not when they were so close.

“I’ll take it,” Captain Kirsanov said. “Shirahane, take us off course.” 

“Captain,” Yukina hardly heard the words as she spoke them, “if I may make a suggestion—”

“—I need you to prepare to go off course, Shirahane—" Captain Kirsanov continued.

“—If we take the ship into hyperdrive, we can lose them. That is a border patrol ship. It doesn’t go that fast.” Yukina knew that she could do it. It was now only a question of whether the Captain believed that she could. 

The Bay was silent. Yukina couldn't even hear anyone breathe. She realized she was holding her breath herself.

“Yukina, if we do that, we can crash into the Chi-One,” Sebastian said.

“I can power down right as we approach the Chi-One,” Yukina said.

“You’ll shut the engine down. It can’t take a power down on hyperdrive,” Rosa said.

“Can you fix it?,” Yukina asked the American.

“Yeah sure. But it will take a few hours—“

“—Enough,” Captain Kirsanov interrupted, "you are disobeying direct order from superior officer, Shirahane. I command that you steer us off course. Now.”

That was it. To hell with the Captain. She could do it. She could bring them closer to Chi-One and lose the ship. Yukina had been extensively trained in maneuvering tactics at Toyama. Only she, in the whole universe, had the capability to navigate this behemoth of a ship, this pinnacle of human ingenuity. She was the navigator of the first human-bearing craft to go beyond the solar system. She had taken them to Mars and all those other planets that were once thought unreachable. She wasn't Sophie Noël. She wasn't a genius. But she had done it. 

However, none of it mattered when the Captain had no faith in her ability. He had, from the very beginning, been the most vocal objector to her joining the mission. She was, in his mind, a lucky idiot. She had been lucky enough to be born with the genetic code to open the black cube Kennosuke had been sleeping in for centuries. She had been lucky enough to have been the one to sit in the Kuromukuro and bind her nervous system to the alien mecha. She had been lucky enough to have the famous Chief Researcher of Kurobe Dam as her mother. Nevermind that she came into the mission with glowing recommendations from Colonel Tom Borden of the US Army. To Captain Kirsanov, she was nothing but a foolish love-struck teenager who could not be trusted.

He wasn't wrong, Yukina had thought. She was extremely lucky. She had also been extremely foolish and naïve. But that did not erase everything she had done. Had she not been at Kurobe Dam that day the Efy Dolge ships deployed their fleets to Earth, mankind would not have stood a fighting chance against the invaders. She may have had no choice in sitting in the Kuromukuro but that didn't change the fact that she had been damn good at navigating it. She may have been a love-struck teenager but that didn't change the fact that she had learned and endured everything she had to in order to qualify for this mission. She may be a lucky idiot but she had done all that. Damn the Captain if he couldn't see that…

“Yukina,” the soft whisper of Sophie’s voice caught her attention. Yukina turned to the seat beside her and met the gaze Sophie was sending her way. The petite blonde gave a nod so imperceptible that Yukina would not have seen it had she not been sitting right beside Sophie.

…And Sophie believed in her. What more did she need?

Yukina punched in the command on the navigation deck.

“What are you doing, Shirahane?,” Liu Yun’s alarmed voice rose amidst the warning signals Yukina’s command had triggered.

“I’m taking us into hyperdrive. Everybody sit tight,” Yukina said. 

“Officer Noël, override that immediately. Shirahane, if you do not stop this I am holding you for insubordination,” Yukina could see the bulging veins on the Captain’s neck from her station. Out of the corner of her eye, Yukina could see Sophie punching in commands. But they weren't for an overdrive. They were for an impact shield around the ship. Smart girl.

“Shields up. Hyperdrive engaged,” Yukina said as she pushed the ship into hyperdrive. As soon as she pushed the lever, the stars that once dotted the bay window turned into streaks of light.

Yukina had not felt this calm in ages.


	3. Chapter 3

“Captain, we are receiving a message,” Officer Liu Yun said. They hadn't even been in hyperdrive for more than a minute.

“In hyperdrive?” Captain Kirsanov’s was practically screaming over the blaring of hundreds of in-ship alerts Yukina had triggered with her override. Yukina imagined the jail cell she would be confined to for the rest of their life when they returned to Earth. If they ever did.

“Is it even human?,” Dr. Cook asked.

“It’s in English,” Liu answered, “Shirahane, it’s telling us to stop!”

Yukina looked at her navigation panel. A planet had literally appeared onscreen and was approaching too quickly for Yukina's liking. As her fingers found the commands on the navigation panel, Yukina swore that the planet hadn’t been there moments ago. But that hardly mattered now. She had to slow the ship down before they reached the planet's atmosphere. That should avoid them creating a crater and scattering their charred remains over whatever unfortunate planet this was.

“We’re making impact in T minus five seconds,” Sophie said.

Yukina's fingers flew across the navigation panel taking them out of hyperdrive. The oranges and blues of the strange planet appeared in the bay window.

"Four."

With both hands, Yukina flipped the main switch, shutting down the ship's core engine. She could already feel the sweat rapidly forming on her forehead as she ran back to her navigation panel. They had entered the planet's atmosphere.

"Three."

"Everyone, strap on." Yukina shouted as her own seat belt buckled around her chest and waist.

"Two."

The ship was getting hot. Yukina could make out a structure among the water and rock formations that dotted the planet's surface.

"One."

Yukina grabbed the main control and pulled with all her might.

The ship shook when it hit land. Yukina steered the Kurobe, avoiding the protruding rocks of the mountainside they had just crashed into. The strange structure was right beside them. It did not look like a natural part of the land. Where the planet had a mostly rocky, dry surface, this facility had a metallic sheen to it. A building stood tall at the center of several smaller buildings. As they got closer to where the base of the mountain met the edge of the facility, she saw people. And not people. Aliens. All running towards them. The possibility that she had let them crash right into an Efy Dolgh planet hadn't even occurred to her.

Their momentum finally ran out when they reached the base of the mountain. The impact of their landing buried the nose of the Kurobe Explorer into the dirt. As the dust cleared outside, Yukina could see that the beings -- of different species as far as Yukina could tell -- had arranged himself around their ship.

"Captain!," Dr. Cook was on the floor beside the Captain Kirsanov the moment the ship stopped moving. The Captain was clutching his right arm as Dr. Ambrose pleaded with him to not move. From what Yukina could see, the Captain's elbow was at an awkward angle. Most definitely broken then.

"Officer Mozumi, what is the state of our weapons?," Captain Kirsanov asked, his voice quivering from the pain.

_Weapons?_

"All weapons are intact, Captain.," Yukina could hear the hesitation in Sebastian's voice. If this were an Efy Dolgh planet, not even the arms capability of the Kurobe and the GAUS units could save them.

"Officer Mendez, are the GAUS units ready?" Kirsanov was planning to go down guns a-blazing.

"Ready, Captain," Rosa said.

So this was how it was going to end, Yukina thought. In the Medusa, fighting for her life in the face of certain death. She smiled thinking of her 18-year old self, of the young girl who wrote “Mars” when asked for her life goals. She never felt so close to that girl as she did right now. Here, at the final moments of her life, Yukina thought of how she had gotten to Mars—and farther beyond. She had fulfilled that young girl’s wish.

As to her own wish -- that was a longer shot anyway. The samurai had already done what no one else could do for Yukina. He had given her a life purpose. He had given her the push that let her make the impossible possible. He was the reason she made it to Mars. He was the reason she had become anything more than ordinary. As she stood to go to the loading deck that would bring her to the Medusa, Yukina thanked Kennosuke and wished him happiness wherever in the galaxy he was….

“Captain, we're getting another message,” Liu’s voice was shaking, “someone is trying to call the ship.”

“Patch them through,” Captain Kirsanov ordered. Yukina noticed that she was the only one standing to go to the geoframes. Everyone else was still in their seats, eyes frozen at the bay window. Why was everyone else so calm?

“Zell!,” Sophie shouted with delight.

_Zell?_ Perhaps the crash had finally done their French protégé in. It was a good thing they were about to die.

“Greetings. I am Commander Zell. We mean you no harm…”

When Yukina finally looked outside the bay window she saw a large, familiar horned figure cloaked in purple standing on what looked like a vehicle of some sort. He was holding some sort of mouthpiece while his mouth was moving as if to speak.

And just like that, their journey was finally over. Yukina Shirahane had navigated the Kurobe Explore across the galaxy and had brought them to the alien Zell. That meant only one thing.

She had made it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update time! Sorry it's a short one. The next chapter should be up in a few days though, I promise the wait won't be long at all. Thanks to everyone who's read, kudos-ed, bookmarked, and commented! It's so nice to know that people are reading this thing I write to destress from studying for the bar exams. I apologize that this is not going as quickly as I would have liked. Studying is tiring and I'm currently brainstorming for another story as well. I'm a glutton for punishment like that. Also, I know we're waiting for Kennosuke to make an appearance but hang tight -- he's coming!
> 
> ~ Sabrina


	4. Chapter 4

Everything was a blur from the moment the crew of the Kurobe Explorer exited their vessel. They were, immediately, whisked away by a fleet of assorted alien life forms. The medical bay where they were initially taken to had about twenty staff members, none of whom looked anything alike. The doctor-in-charge had been a short bean-like creature who compensated for his stature with a deep, rolling voice. Yukina's nurse could have passed as a completely ordinary human being had it not been for the tail and the deep indigo shade that colored his skin.

What surprised Yukina the most was that most of them were speaking English. Martel, the engineer who was assisting them unload the Kurobe, was particularly fluent and had been instructing and accommodating them for over two hours. While they were only moving the GAUS units and the Medusa, that meant that they were also moving Captain Kirsanov's fleet of geobots. It was just their luck that the Captain was sleeping off the pain medication the doctor had forced on him. Bean-Doctor said it was to ease the pain off his elbow. While Yukina did not doubt the necessity of the medication, she was almost certain that the Bean-Doctor had upped the dosage to knock out the Russian who had been screaming as the Doctor re-set his dislocated elbow.

In absence of their Captain the task of moving the fleet of five hundred remote-controlled human-sized robots, or geobots, fell to First Officer Sophie Noël. In their six years of training together -- two of which was done with the rest of the final Kurobe crew, Sophie had, unsurprisingly, gained a reputation of being entirely competent and up to task. A condition that the UN had imposed on allowing two teenagers to participate in the first space mission destined beyond the solar system was that they both attain a post-graduate understanding of a field of study that was to be of value to the mission. Sophie had excelled in Alien Linguistics, involving herself heavily in the UN initiative to decipher and translate the vast amount of alien data left behind by the Efy Dolge and by Zell. By the time they had left Earth, Sophie had reached a fluency where even the ship’s communications engineer, Dr. Liu Yun, would defer to her on certain translations.

Yukina, on the other hand, had barely scraped by under the tutelage of Chief Engineer Aramata, who had once again kindly delayed his retirement. It wasn't that Minoru, as he would later insist Yukina address him, was a bad teacher--it was that Yukina hadn't magically become capable of understanding graduate-level quantum physics. After all, she was still an average high school student. A disaster in the Hague confirmed what Yukina already knew: that she did not have the brains to rise to the challenge. This realization drove her into a spiral of sleepless nights in her childhood room coping with what seemed like an increasingly impossible task. Koharu had taken to brewing an entire machine's worth of coffee before she went to bed only because Yukina would get so into Griffiths and Sakurai that she once walked into the kitchen, turned on the coffee machine, and left it there until morning. Uncle Yakushi had awoken to a cracked coffee pot and a dozing Yukina, face buried in the pages of her textbook.

But she had made it onto to Kurobe mission. Yukina knew that to certain individuals, this was due more to Tom Borden's reluctance to leave the comforts of Earth. After Kennosuke left the only two people on Earth with experience in an alien geoframe were Yukina and the American soldier. The UN had officially named Tom Borden as the pilot of the Long Arm in the same ceremony it attached a star to his fatigues and instituted him as the head of the newly-established Alien Defense Corps. She had heard more than one person say "I'd feel much safer with the girl as far away from earth as possible" during the ceremony.

Yukina gritted her teeth at the memory. It pained her to think that to many, Captain Kirsanov included, she was still the a ridiculously lucky teenager whose only motivation was to reunite with her boyfriend. Never mind that she had managed to compute the trajectory of the Kurobe after Mars all on her own. Never mind that she had completed the years of training with the second-highest geoframe simulation score--right after Sophie Noël. Never mind that the UN had ultimately decided to entrust the Kurobe in her hands. Never mind that she had actually gotten them where they needed to be. She, the once love-struck teenager, had brought them to Chi-one Sagiitarii, farther than any human being had ever gone before. "Ignorant fools deserve no attention," Sebastian had told her once. It was advice that Yukina desperately clung to, praying that she believe it as much as she prayed for it to be true. 

Yukina surveyed the hanger they were in. It was massive. It could, quite easily, fit ten of the old Tateyama International High School's baseball field side by side. Yukina's mouth formed into a smirk as she walls were covered in an array of geoframes, each occupying its own space in the wall. The presence of all these mechas under one roof excited her. Judging by the opening above each geoframe, these spaces were actually launch pads. So this hanger was both storage facility and launch pad. 

Some of the openings didn't have geoframes under them. Zell had mentioned that Kennosuke had taken a fleet exploring somewhere in the planet that very morning. That would explain the gaps on the wall and the absence of a certain 400-year old samurai. All for the better, Yukina thought. She was still decidedly ignoring the knot in her stomach. She found that thinking about it lead to too many contradictions of thought and feelings -- contradictions that Yukina was all too happy to bury deep in that part of her heart where she hadn't dared enter in six years.

Something, however, caught Yukina's eye. As she was turning her attention back to the commotion caused by Rosa (once again) getting run over by a geobot, she saw a familiar blur of black and red from the farthest corner of the room. This was the last place Yukina had expected to see this particular geoframe. It made no sense that it was here -- in the dark and gathering dust. 

"Engineer Martel!" Yukina shouted as she ran towards the alien. Engineer Martel could pass off as human from his eyebrows downward. It was the presence of two very thin feelers at the top of his forehead that betrayed his alien origin.

"Yes, Officer Shirahane?" Martel's voice was high and not unpleasantly trill. It reminded Yukina of the piccolo Koharu was just starting to get good at when Yukina had left for Chi-One. 

"Why is the Kuromukuro in here? I thought you said Kennosuke had taken it out."

"I don't take it out anymore," the deep came from somewhere incredibly close to her right ear. Shivers ran down Yukina's spine as she felt a pair of strong hands gently land on her shoulder.

That was probably not the best time for Yukina to lose her cool and smack her open palm on Kennosuke's cheek.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!
> 
> Thank you for stopping by and for giving this little piece your time. I really pray I'll be able to update regularly. This is the first fic I'm ever writing after years (!!!!) of reading fanfic. I just couldn't help it for Kuromukuro. I had to know what happened next. Haha. I hope you enjoy and see you around!
> 
> ~ Sabrina


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